SNOBOL

[n2ize]

Should read SNOBOL but I don;t see a way to edit the title. SNOBAL4 for Linux, *nix, Mac, Winders http://www.snobol4.org/csnobol4/

[W3WN]

And I thought the thread the other day about COBOL was bringing the dead back to life. My long slumbering high school and freshman college programming courses are trying to awake themselves. Back! Back to sleep!

What's next? ALGOL? PL/1?

[WØTKX]

LOGO! ME LIKEY TURTLES!

:rofl:

http://el.media.mit.edu/logo-foundation/

[kf0rt]

And I thought the thread the other day about COBOL was bringing the dead back to life. My long slumbering high school and freshman college programming courses are trying to awake themselves. Back! Back to sleep!

What's next? ALGOL? PL/1?


Oohhhhhhh... PL/1.

How 'bout some ADA?

[ab1ga]

And I thought the thread the other day about COBOL was bringing the dead back to life. My long slumbering high school and freshman college programming courses are trying to awake themselves. Back! Back to sleep!

What's next? ALGOL? PL/1?

Simula, TECO, and INTERCAL.

:)

[WØTKX]

Ada was cool... :agree:

[n2ize]

Some of these older languages have niche markets. I know a few engineers who still use FORTRAN and/or embed FORTRAN code into modern languages. SNOBOL still has it's niche users usually as embedded stuff within another framework. And Lisp. I still use Lisp for various types of things. It lends itself well to certain types of mathematical and algebraic structure in a way that is more robust than many other languages. I would say that as far as older languages go Lisp (or variants of) are most useful to me. COBOL would be the least useful for me.

[WØTKX]

No love for Logo. Waaaa. I had a lot of fun with it. About a decade later, that experience helped me grok AutoLisp. I've been messing with Google SketchUp for a few months. Ruby is the language to play with there. Have not tried it... SketchUp confuses the crap out of me. I keep thinking of AutoCAD solutions, and I have to stop thinking like that.

[NQ6U]

SNOBOL? Not a chance in hell.

[n2ize]

I always say use the language that is best suited for the job at hand. There are some things that Lisp can do better than most other languages. SNOBOL is good for certain types of string processing. I was never a big fan of people who latch on to one or two languages and snub their noses at everything else. I am far more impressed with those who can design efficient algorithms and solve problems efficiency whether it be in pseudocode or symbolically on paper or in their heads and then translate it into usable code using whatever language or combination is best for the job at hand, embedding code if and when necessary.

Bear in mind I am not a big fan of writing computer code for fun or as a hobby. To me it is merely a means to an end.

[n6hcm]

What's next? ALGOL? PL/1?

been there; done that. pl/1 used to be my favorite for a while, actually.

[kf0rt]

No love for Logo. Waaaa. I had a lot of fun with it. About a decade later, that experience helped me grok AutoLisp. I've been messing with Google SketchUp for a few months. Ruby is the language to play with there. Have not tried it... SketchUp confuses the crap out of me. I keep thinking of AutoCAD solutions, and I have to stop thinking like that.

I'd love to be a SketchUp expert. Neat stuff and I've seen some AMAZING stuff done with it. Played a bit, but no time.

I'm the last dood on earth (I think) who still makes a living with M80. Microsoft's Macro Assembler. Do a lot of VC++ stuff, too. These days, I maintain about 2 million lines of C++ code and spend a lot of time asking people if what they want is important. All the experts were laid off and I was the sole survivor. EVERYTHING is a learning gig.

Dabbled in Ada once and long ago did a PL/M project once (Intel's version of PL/1 in the late 70's).

Computers suck, and programming sucks worse. Can't wait to get out.

[rot]

I maintained say maybe 500 or so punchcards of PL/1 stuff up until about 1987 or so. I believe one set of cards was supposed to recognize Palindromes or something.
I bailed on Linux after about the 6 Redhat distro and all my cell phone text buffers are all phucked up...
I am phucking burnt on chemistry...looking forward to wrapping that up.
I am however looking forwarding getting back into the coloring books. If I play my cards right...I won't even have to stay in the lines....Hell Yeah!!!!!
rot

[n2ize]

Programming is about the crappiest profession that anyone could get into. I'd rather clean toilets than be a programmer. I am glad I missed any callings that would have guided me into programming. Give me an idea and a pencil and paper and I am happy.. You can keep your desktops, Macs, iPods, iPads, Androids and all that rubbish. Computer are evil tools that go where human minds should not.

[n2ize]

I am phucking burnt on chemistry...looking forward to wrapping that up.


I hate Chemistry. Luckily I dodged out of a Chemistry curriculum early on as a froshman.

[kf0rt]

I maintained say maybe 500 or so punchcards of PL/1 stuff up until about 1987 or so. I believe one set of cards was supposed to recognize Palindromes or something.
I bailed on Linux after about the 6 Redhat distro and all my cell phone text buffers are all phucked up...
I am phucking burnt on chemistry...looking forward to wrapping that up.
I am however looking forwarding getting back into the coloring books. If I play my cards right...I won't even have to stay in the lines....Hell Yeah!!!!!
rot

I hear ya, Rot. Man, this stuff was so much fun years ago; chemistry or bits. These days it's all management; lawyers and the clueless money grabbers. I want out so bad I can taste it and all the tech maestro's I know feel the same way; no matter their discipline.

I'm not happy that you're burned out, but damn if I don't feel like I'm in great company. I've been fried for years.

Thumbs up to good dogs and a family whut loves ya. The rest is bullshit. Fucking hate computers these days, but it bought me a house and paid the bills for a lot of years. If they can do better, let 'em.

Maybe it's time to give up a bit and just live, eh?

[kf0rt]

Programming is about the crappiest profession that anyone could get into. I'd rather clean toilets than be a programmer. I am glad I missed any callings that would have guided me into programming. Give me an idea and a pencil and paper and I am happy.. You can keep your desktops, Macs, iPods, iPads, Androids and all that rubbish. Computer are evil tools that go where human minds should not.

I agree, but it wasn't always that way.

I'd be inclined to write a book on programming as a retirement project, but it'd bore me to tears. Life as a programmer in the early days of microprocessors was fun. Today, every manager in the book has written a line of code and that makes them all experts.

[rot]

Maybe it's time to give up a bit and just live, eh?

You nailed it man. That is the deal.
Major internets for you.:dance:

rot

[rot]

I hate Chemistry. Luckily I dodged out of a Chemistry curriculum early on as a froshman.

I would not not recommend to anyone. I have enjoyed most of the work over the years. Just tired I guess.
I guess anybody who can endure an endeavor for 30 plus years,still love it, still be productive and still be pumped about it is ultra cool...but somehow it just isn't my circumstance.
Fer sure.
Which once again has little to do with SNOBOL,,,but hey..what the hay.

rot

[NQ6U]

Programming is about the crappiest profession that anyone could get into.

Obviously, you've never tried driving a truck for a living.

[kf0rt]

I would not not recommend to anyone. I have enjoyed most of the work over the years. Just tired I guess.
I guess anybody who can endure an endeavor for 30 plus years,still love it, still be productive and still be pumped about it is ultra cool...but somehow it just isn't my circumstance.
Fer sure.
Which once again has little to do with SNOBOL,,,but hey..what the hay.

rot

Many, many years ago, I hired a chemist. I was in my late 20's and he was pushing retirement. Dood learned to program as a hobby and had a major "fukitol"attitude about chemistry. Had a PhD in it and was a top dog at Hercules designing pesticides (VP if I recall correctly). It wasn't the chemistry that burned him out but the management and all the legal hurdles. All the side shit <tm> took the fun out of it for him. One of the coolest dudes I ever met and he was really excited to take a huge pay cut to spend his days doing something he liked. Kid in a candy store excited.

The 30+ years thing nails it here too, Terry. Just about everyone I know "our age" is in the same bucket. 34 years here (26 with the same company -- now #1 in seniority; been there twice as long as the CEO). Great people, decent place to work and the pay doesn't suck. But at some point, the work became just work.

Runnin' on autopilot.

[n2ize]

Many, many years ago, I hired a chemist. I was in my late 20's and he was pushing retirement. Dood learned to program as a hobby and had a major "fukitol"attitude about chemistry. Had a PhD in it and was a top dog at Hercules designing pesticides (VP if I recall correctly). It wasn't the chemistry that burned him out but the management and all the legal hurdles. All the side shit <tm> took the fun out of it for him. One of the coolest dudes I ever met and he was really excited to take a huge pay cut to spend his days doing something he liked. Kid in a candy store excited.



Of course I am kidding with regards to hating programming or chemistry...

BUT...

The big men in suits have a strange way of making the most interesting and challenging things boring and crappy. Almost no profession is as you imagine it to be while young and in school, unless perhaps if you go to work in the academic world. In school they teach you all kinds of things that may seem interesting or that you may learn about on your own but when you go to work in industry or business you find you use only a fraction of the stuff you learned and perhaps thought was interesting, Some people fare better in the academic world doing academic research or teaching or both. But its not easy to find jobs there. Opening's don't arise often and if you go to work as an adjunct (been there done that and may do it again) the pay is not quite so good and the work , although it can be rewarding, is not always consistent. Then again what is consistent these days. Most young people these days will never experience 20-30+ years with one single company... Today its more like 3 years here, one year there, 5 years elsewhere, 2.5 years somewhere else, etc.

I often wonder how many a young prodigy's who could have done something really breakthrough have been stifled in the corporate world.

[n6hcm]

Some people fare better in the academic world doing academic research or teaching or both. But its not easy to find jobs there. Opening's don't arise often and if you go to work as an adjunct (been there done that and may do it again) the pay is not quite so good and the work , although it can be rewarding, is not always consistent. Then again what is consistent these days. Most young people these days will never experience 20-30+ years with one single company... Today its more like 3 years here, one year there, 5 years elsewhere, 2.5 years somewhere else, etc.

this isn't limited to "young people" ... i'm 49 (not old but hardly young) and when the guy who runs the lab i work in saw my resume he was surprised ... the longest i've been with any employer is six years (that's how long i've been with my lab; runners-up include oracle and mit at 5.5 years). on the other hand, he's been with the VA for about thirty years.

i'd love to end up in academia ... not so likely now, but still possible. i'm sorta on the edge of academia, and i'm hoping library school will help keep me there.

[W1GUH]

Obviously, you've never tried driving a truck for a living.

Could be that any way a particular person makes a living is the crappiest way to do it! I'd say that even being in a star band that plays big arenas has parts to it the suck big-time. When you're doing something for money & the money constraints start kicking in -- either real or imagined by the "clueless suits", the job starts to suck big time! Especially since those suits are extremely greedy and selfishly pay the guys actually creating value as little as possible.

This applies to the arts...to programming...to hardware design...to medicine...to law...to ditch digging...to working on an assembly line.

When what you do is something you love to do it's very, very easy to forget when those suits are all over, and up, your hairy asshole, is that you are getting paid to do something you love to do. Sure, there's lots and lots of pure bullshit involved...at least from a certain point of view...but a lot of that BS is necessary -- something that's not very obvious to a young talented hot-shot who "knows everything."

People ALWAYS bitch about their jobs -- just human nature. But there ARE ameliorating factors. Maybe the most important one is that "those suits", at least the better breed of them, understand the frustrations of the young know-it-all hotshots and will forgive, or not even notice, inappropriate comments made naively. I know that yours truly has been cut lots and lots of slack in that department.

So bitch all you want...

[n2ize]

Could be that any way a particular person makes a living is the crappiest way to do it! I'd say that even being in a star band that plays big arenas has parts to it the suck big-time. When you're doing something for money & the money constraints start kicking in -- either real or imagined by the "clueless suits", the job starts to suck big time! Especially since those suits are extremely greedy and selfishly pay the guys actually creating value as little as possible.

This applies to the arts...to programming...to hardware design...to medicine...to law...to ditch digging...to working on an assembly line.



Years ago I had a book on Unix and in the book the author discussed the history of Unix and computers in general. He actually stated in the book how "men in suits" stepped in and took an interesting profession and killed so much of the cool stuff via their greed and desire to control everything.

[W1GUH]

Years ago I had a book on Unix and in the book the author discussed the history of Unix and computers in general. He actually stated in the book how "men in suits" stepped in and took an interesting profession and killed so much of the cool stuff via their greed and desire to control everything.

Exactly the BS I'm talking about. What I witnessed at Digital Equipment & a good friend has seen at Microsoft.

[kf0rt]

Exactly the BS I'm talking about. What I witnessed at Digital Equipment & a good friend has seen at Microsoft.

Ubiquitous is the word I'm thinking of here. Even in small companies.

[n2ize]

this isn't limited to "young people" ... i'm 49 (not old but hardly young) and when the guy who runs the lab i work in saw my resume he was surprised ... the longest i've been with any employer is six years (that's how long i've been with my lab; runners-up include oracle and mit at 5.5 years). on the other hand, he's been with the VA for about thirty years.

i'd love to end up in academia ... not so likely now, but still possible. i'm sorta on the edge of academia, and i'm hoping library school will help keep me there.

Good luck. Network with as many people in academia as you can. Stay connected, even if it means working as an adjunct or an instructor, assistant, etc.